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We Review $5,000 From Scratch by Ewen Chia.

Pros: You get a lot for the front-end price. The methods are explained in detail and covers topics other products won't. I could see this as a way to make a decent income.

Cons: The tactics used on the sales page are a little disappointing. You are relying on a third party (Facebook) for your business. Only video training is being offered.

Our Recommendation: For beginners this is not a bad introduction to online marketing, but to rely on Facebook for your entire business is a big risk. They can change how they operate and your business could disappear overnight.

Full Review
Ewen Chia is apparently a self-made millionaire, who has been lurking in the background of internet marketing for the past 8 years.

He has come out of hiding with a new launch that allegedly can make you $5000 or more a month, with only 15 minutes per day work.

Why is it that all these sort of internet marketing products say you only need to spend 15 minutes per day? It’s rarely true.

The Pitch
Ewen’s sales pitch is classic internet marketing: a video pitch combined with a long sales letter explaining why this system is the best and spewing out a sob story and every other trick in the book.

To be fair though, it is also one of the most white-hat sales pages I’ve seen in a long time with nothing that really stands out as looking scammy.

The biggest issue I have with the sales page is the claim that $5,000 per month is made on just 15 minutes of work per day. Ewen makes the clear distinction that he does not consider this a “get rich quick” scheme. If you were to convert these earnings to a typical 40 hour work-week career, the product is advertising roughly a $1,000 per hour salary. In what world is $1,000/hr not considered getting rich quick?

It’s disappointing to see the product advertised with such claims, but I still had high-hopes regarding the quality of the product for the price.

Buying $5,000 From Scratch
The product itself is $17 at the time of writing, though if you do the old “go to leave the website but actually stay” trick (I must give that a better name!), you can get the front end product for a mere $7 bucks.

After buying you are slammed into a sales funnel that if you buy everything from will cost you between $291 and $301 on top of the initial cost.

Do the upsells provide value? Maybe, but as with most upsells they aren’t strictly necessary. Some like the first might even be somewhat harmful if used as is (this upsell is for templates to use, but if everyone else is using them without modification it could become problematic).

The members area is also laden with up and cross sells which is not unexpected but could be confusing for a newbie internet marketer, thinking they are all needed when they really aren’t.

The Training
The training in $5,000 From Scratch consists of 6 videos, totaling 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Video 1 – Finding a Niche
The first training video runs at about 30 minutes and starts by discussing mentality when it comes to starting your own online business.

From there it goes on to discuss different types of niches that you could pick and what to look for in a niche.

The content here is pretty much standard fare and can be found in countless other online marketing training and products.

Still, from a beginner point of view it offers a lot of valid points and is detailed enough to get you started.

It focuses heavily on targeting high value products and niches where people have problems but plenty of money to spend to resolve those problems.

Video 2 – Finding a High Ticket Product
The bottom line of this video is to use Google. It doesn’t really do much more than that but if you’ve never searched for high ticket products and affiliate schemes then it is useful. The bulk of the video concentrates on why you should be promoting high ticket products.

Video 3 – Creating Your Facebook Group
The sales pitch for this product says that you don’t need to do certain things like creating a list, using Google AdWords, creating products etc. This is because all your marketing focus will be on using Facebook and specifically Facebook groups.

This video explains why you should be doing so and how to go about it.

At 43 minutes long, it consists of the bulk of the training and it does go into detail about how to get an FB page up and running.

It explains as well how to set the page up including how to get content to add to your FB page.

Video 4 – Promoting Your Group
The $5,000 From Scratch course continues with using well-worn tactics to promote your newly created Facebook group.

From promoting on Facebook itself to forums, email lists and social media, this training isn’t giving any experienced or intermediate marketer anything new.

From a newbie point of view it certainly outlines a lot of different ways to promote the page, some you may never have thought of.

It also discusses paid traffic, specifically Facebook Ads. And why wouldn’t you? If you’re going to base a business on FB, you may as well take advantage of their very good advertising platform (remember, FB knows everything about you!).

The majority of the video covers FB adverts and does so in a detailed manner.

Video 5 – Adding Value to Your Group
I liked this short video. It gave some great examples of how to actually provide value and what sort of posts you should be posting on your group feed. It’s unusual to see this sort of information in an internet marketing product and it’s great to see as this is an area a lot of people fall flat with as it’s merely assumed they know how rather than stated.

Video 6 – Advanced Monetization Methods
The final video from $5,000 from Scratch is a short one but it outlines other ways to monetize your FB group.

Again there’s nothing new here for intermediates or above, but it may spark some ideas for newbies. It is however short and therefore not very detailed.

Is $5,000 From Scratch any good?
$5,000 From Scratch does have a lot going for it, which is surprising for a low ticket training product.

It provides some solid training in certain areas, such as FB adverts and niche selection, and its methods are well explored and it is certainly possible to earn $5k a month using this sort of system.

Issues with $5,000 From Scratch
My main bugbear about this system is that it teaches you to create a business based off of another business’ platform.

The issue here is that if Facebook decides one day to change their rules governing pages and content or even to ban you for and unexpected transgression of their rules, you will be saying goodbye to your business.

I understand perfectly well that using Facebook is a solid way to promote a business or website and to create leads and a following, but to have your entire business on a Facebook page is just asking for trouble!

As well as that I have some over-arching issues with the product. First off, everything is done in video format with no check sheets or PDFs you can quickly look at. This means you will be spending a lot of time re-watching content just to find out what he said about using Google.

The Bottom Line
Overall, $5,000 From Scratch is actually a solid product, certainly not a scam. What it teaches is pretty much good marketing, and there’s definitely the chance to make the stated $5,000+ per month though I highly doubt you can do it with only 15 minutes work per day, despite the claims of the sales page.

It has its flaws though. The training could have been more in depth in some areas and having training in other media would have been very welcome, especially considering some of the video lengths.

I still can’t get over the fact he wants you to lump everything onto Facebook though. For me, it’s like putting all your eggs in one basket and then running really fast down a steep, rocky hill.

Still if you’re willing to take that chance, then it’s not a bad system to follow. At $7 for a front-end product, you do receive quite a lot of value.